Closer, 2022
Curated by Katie Winten
The Bearded Tit
CLOSER is the first exhibition at The Bearded Tit since the beginning of the pandemic. The work in this show reflects on how intimacy, proximity, relationality, distance and touch were and are experienced in lock-downs, both state-sanctioned and self-directed. How do artists and gig economy workers offer gestures of connection to their communities during these times of isolation? As the pandemic, predictably, plays out along lines of structural inequalities, these artists resist through their inquiries into marginalisation, tenacity and fragility; through their expressions of desire, playfulness and care. Located in a queer bar, a gathering space shut down for much of the pandemic (and still inaccessible for many), this show provides the backdrop for those that can to tentatively re-emerge, regroup and reconnect.
In our STREETSPACE, Spacefloss present a reimagining of Happy for you to Hold me. These hand sewn ‘pillob’ sculptures conjure a yearning to touch and hold, an embrace remembered but not enacted. Happy for you to hold me continues on the TAXIDERMY TV with an accompanying video work that explores the experience of holding, grasping, reaching, touching, things we’ve missed while apart. Fleeting embraces evoke longing for remembered touch, surrendering to desire. In the SALON, Leila El Rayes says of her works -”Bored and lonely in lockdown. Drawing friends online”. A playful exchange during the Warrang lockdowns in which Leila asked instagram friends through an online callout to provide a way they would like to be portrayed, in exchange for a sketch depicting them as such. In the CARAVAN, Riana Head-Toussaint’s video work ‘InspoCam’ explores the choreography and consumption of Inspiration Porn. It interrogates our tendency to objectify others in the quest for our own personal gratification, and questions when and under what circumstances this might be ok. In the BATHROOM, Ayebatonye provides a Bathroom Blend, a mix to traverse genres and emotions very much like living amidst a global pandemonium has felt, and sometimes what bathrooms themselves can feel like. Moments of joy as well as moments of trepidation. Ayebatonye hopes that whoever is listening feels the fluid nature & wide spectrum of emotions reflected in this mix.